Visualized: The Top S&P 500 Stocks Over 20 Years

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Top Performing S&P 500 Stocks Over 20 Years


The Top S&P 500 Stocks Over 20 Years

Everyone knows that Apple has seen impressive returns in recent years, but looking back 20 years is even more striking.

As the best performing S&P 500 stock since 2003, it has returned a jaw-dropping 59,918% in returns. Yet like Apple, several other companies have seen notable returns, rewarding investors who stayed the course.

This graphic shows the top S&P 500 stocks over the last two decades, with data from YCharts.
 

Top S&P 500 Performers

Here are the best performing S&P 500 stocks, ranked by their 20-year total returns:

Rank Company Ticker Sector 20 Year Return
1 Apple AAPL Information Technology 59,918%
2 Monster Beverage MNST Consumer Staples 59,299%
3 Nvidia NVDA Information Technology 28,712%
4 Intuitive Surgical ISRG Health Care 18,221%
5 Booking Holdings BKNG Consumer Discretionary 16,299%
6 Netflix NFLX Communication Services 13,442%
7 Old Dominion Freight Line ODFL Industrials 9,403%
8 SBA Communications SBAC Real Estate 7,356%
9 Copart CPRT Industrials 6,592%
10 Regeneron Pharmaceuticals REGN Health Care 6,296%
11 Amazon AMZN Consumer Discretionary 5,314%
12 West Pharmaceutical Services WST Health Care 4,981%
13 Tyler Technologies TYL Information Technology 4,767%
14 O'Reilly Automotive ORLY Consumer Discretionary 4,413%
15 Vertex Pharmaceuticals VRTX Health Care 3,962%

As we can see, six stocks soared over 10,000% led by Apple, Monster, and Nvidia.

Part of this can be explained by the fact that shares of Apple and Monster were trading for mere cents in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Intuitive Surgical (#4) IPO’d in 2000, and produces robotics used in surgeries.

With 13,442% returns, Netflix (#6) IPO’d in 2002 and was priced at $1 per share. The streaming giant projects its operating margins will hit 20% in 2023.

Overall, the top sectors for the best performing stocks were distributed across sectors, with tech, health care, and consumer discretionary seeing the highest number of risers.


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Disclosure: None

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